Tech companies have found themselves in the crosshairs of Trump’s aggressive tariff policies over the past week, with the Magnificent Seven losing $2 trillion in value in the latest market downturn and possibly more pain to come.
Because of its significant exposure to China, Apple initially saw the largest selloff of the group. The iPhone maker’s shares dropped roughly 20% in the week after Trump announced his reciprocal tariffs, before rebounding modestly on Thursday and Friday
Still, analyst and investor sentiment hasn’t turned on Apple, in part because of the training and pedigree of its current CEO, Tim Cook, and his background as a supply-chain whisperer.
“We’re at a moment in which the kinds of responsibilities a COO is used to having might best serve a CEO,” says Jeremy Friedman, associate professor of business and geopolitics at Harvard Business School. “The focus is on logistics right now.”
Dan Ives, a senior analyst at Wedbush Securities, has warned against Trump’s plans to force Apple to manufacture iPhones domestically—something that business-world watchers agree would be disastrous. And although Apple is in an unenviable position, he says that Cook is uniquely suited to meeting the moment.
“The reality is that no company is more in the eye of the storm,” says Ives. “But given Cook’s history, in my opinion, as one of the best leaders in the world, there’s no one better to navigate this than him.”
Cook as a master operator
Cook arrived at Apple in 1998 at a critical moment for the company. The tech brand enjoyed strong consumer demand, but its cluttered supply chain and inventory mismanagement created massive challenges and inconsistent quality. Cook, who had held senior operations roles at Compaq and IBM, and is an engineer by training, redesigned Apple’s sprawling supply chain and built its just-in-time inventory system. Apple’s legendary cofounder Steve Jobs named Cook as CEO just months before his death.
It was the right move for a myriad of reasons, including what was about to happen in the business environment. Research from McKinsey published in 2022 shows that compared with decades ago, companies are experiencing more unforeseeable disruptions to their supply chains, and with greater consequences, than ever before. But companies with senior leaders and board members who are also operational masterminds are usually first to respond in a crisis, making them high performers, says Daniel Swan, who co-leads McKinsey’s operations practice globally.
Leaders steeped in operations understand “from the bottom up, what’s happening,” says Swan. They develop a granular rather than superficial understanding of events, he says, which leads to “understanding the implications for your products, your customers, and allows you to make much better decisions.”
Whether it’s conflicts, pandemics, weather events, or trade wars, operators know to be proactive, understanding that disruptions are a part of life, he adds. And rather than getting fixated on finding one “right” solution, he says, system thinkers look for responses that offer flexibility.
“The one thing about supply-chain disruption is, by definition, you’re going to be wrong,” he says.
‘10% diplomat’
In his early years as CEO, Cook faced criticism for not delivering big splashy new products or projecting the grand visions of his famous predecessor. However, Cook has proved to be the right man for the role, iterating on products, expanding Apple’s market share, and creating the world’s first $3 trillion company (a few others have since followed)—while maneuvering in an increasingly complicated world.
Even in periods of relative calm, Cook has been known for focusing on supply at the right time—for example, by jumping ahead of competitors to book holiday air freight well in advance of the Christmas season.
In the latest test of his tactical skills, Cook has already demonstrated why flexibility matters. Apple reportedly just decided it would be sourcing more U.S.-bound iPhones from India, where Trump set tariffs at 27%, rather than from China, where they’re now 145%. The move is seen as a stopgap measure while tariff negotiations continue.
That kind of agility doesn’t come easily to a company operating at Apple’s scale. But after the pandemic, when Apple eventually suffered the same shortages, delays, and billions in lost sales as other companies, Cook began building additional paths to manufacturing, says Friedman, giving Apple the flexibility to move production to a degree, without moving all of its supply chain out of China.
To be sure, CEOs find themselves in uncharted waters following Trump’s tariffs. Apple is on track to experience an unprecedented challenge along with the rest of corporate America, and there’s only so much that a chief executive can do to blunt the pain of double-digit levies. Ives’s estimate put the post-tariff price of an iPhone as high as $3,500. And just as the market began to fully melt down on Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for all U.S. trading partners with the exception of China, on whom he raised tariffs even more. In short, the unpredictability continues.
But aside from Cook’s COO background, he has been building relationships in Washington, or as Ives puts it: “Cook is 10% politician, 90% CEO.”
In the president’s last term, Cook used his diplomacy skills to win a tariff exemption from Trump, a leader with whom he has developed a strong working relationship.
It’s unclear whether the same opening for relief exists today, or whether Apple’s leader has an advantage over any other CEO or billionaire trying to influence Trump’s policies, says Friedman. However, he notes, as the leader of what was once the world’s most valuable company, caught between two superpowers, Cook may be playing a role as a future statesman on a larger scale than just managing his own company. Accordingly, in February, Apple announced plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. to support its efforts in artificial intelligence, adding a new factory and creating 20,000 jobs over the next four years.
“One can imagine, if there is some sort of grand bargain between the U.S. and China coming in the next year or two,” he says, “Tim Cook might as soon as anybody play an intermediary role.”
